KIEV, Ukraine - Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko made a dramatic and emotional appearance in Kiev's Independence Square Saturday night, capping off an extraordinary day in which the Ukraine Parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych and set new elections for May 25.

Speaking from a wheel chair only hours after her release from prison in Kharkiv, Tymoshenko declared that the many victims of recent violent protests were heroes.

Her release from prison came after a vote in Parliament. Before speaking in Independence Square, she visited Hrushevskoho Street, the site of deadly clashes between police and protesters in January, where she laid flowers at the site in which a protester was slain.

"When snipers were shooting in hearts of our guys, those bullets will always hurt. If we don't prosecute, we should be ashamed," Tymoshenko said.

Tymosehnko: "I am coming back to work. I won't waste a minute as to make sure you are happy on your own land. Glory to Ukraine!"

Earlier Saturday, crowds of anti-government protesters took control of the government quarter, while lawmakers in parliament appointed their own members to top government spots, and news broke that the besieged President had fled the city, possibly even the country.

Opposition factions also took over the presidential estate, allowing people of Kiev their first view of the opulent life that Yanukovych had led.

It was also reported that Yanukovych had verbally agreed to resign. Several opposition members of parliament confirmed that Yanukovych had voiced to them that he had resigned. But his loyal advisor, Hanna Herman, said that he had in fact not done so.

Later in the day Yanukovych appeared in an interview purportedly filmed this afternoon in which he said defiantly that he was not resigning. He also suggested that opposition leaders’ moves in Parliament to appoint members of opposition Batkivshchyna party to leadership positions amounted to a coup d’etat.

"I am doing everything to bring order the country," Yanukovych says in the video. “We have taken all necessary steps to stabilize the political situation in the country, but things have happened the way they have happened.”

“I did everything I could to prevent bloodshed," Yanukovych said. "What we witness now resembles Nazi occupation.... My car was shot, but I am not afraid for my life, I am afraid of my country."

Yanukovych was reportedly in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. Kharkiv has long been more aligned with Russia, and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, than the more nationalist-leaning Kiev.

In an unexpected move, Parliament also voted overwhelmingly to speed up the process of releasing Tymoshenko, a political rival of Yanukovych who has served more than two years of a seven-year sentence widely seen by the West as politically motivated.

By the afternoon Tymoshenko was released from a prison hospital in Kharkiv. According to Radio Free Europe, she spoke briefly to supporters, saying: "Today our whole country can see the sun and the sky, because today the dictatorship fell. And it was not knocked down by politicians or diplomats, but by the people."

The developments came less than 24 hours after the president signed a peace deal with three opposition leaders, including Vitali Klitschko, who had announced last year that he would challenge Yanukovych for the presidency in the next elections. In the deal Yanokvych agreed to early elections in December and other measures that would lessen his powers. Those concessions followed the bloodiest week in Ukraine's post-Soviet history, as at least 75 people were killed in three days of violent clashes between police and protesters.

But Saturday the Parliament met to consider even greater changes. Lawmakers agreed to appoint Oleksandr Turchynov, the former deputy prime minister and loyalist of imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, as speaker of parliament and also acting prime minister. Parliament also voted for the immediate release of Tymoshenko, who has been in jail since 2011.

In addition, protesters seized control of the president's office in Kiev and swarmed over Yankovych's estate, finding there a private zoo, a huge garage with vintage cars and motorcycles and a galleon-style boat in a man-made lake. Many of them posed for souvenir photos.

The developments Saturday also suggested a potential split in the nation as lawmakers in the Russia-aligned eastern regions of Ukraine passed a resolution challenging the legitimacy of the national parliament on Saturday and asserting they were taking control of their territories, according to a Reuters report.

The east-west divisions in Ukraine are at the heart of the issue that sparked months of protests here. In late November, President Yanukovych announced that Ukraine was spurning a proposed trade pact with the European Union in favor or closer ties with Russia. In the early days of the uprising, protesters were chanting "Ukraine is Europe," while the president seemed to be aligning himself much closer to Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

Below is a live video feed from Espreso TV of the scene in Kiev's Independence Square, where crowds await arrival of Tymoshenko.

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